I know several. Some people are self proclaimed bike bums but they are just posers. Here are some of the fine points of bike bumming…

1) You must work no more than 4 hours a day, or 24 hours a week. Hilarious, Dano I wish you success.

The original title for this post was going to be: Can We Afford Great Cycling Cities? But Dano’s post provides some needed humor and perspective before we dive into the morass.

And on to the morass…

Consider the scenario: You got the whole sustainable living message early. You chose to live close to work, bought an affordable living space, you sold the SUV, and bought a bike to use for your daily commute. Congratulations you are a shining example of eco-financial responsibility. We salute you. But now would you mind picking up the tab for your supersuburb McMansion with a Hummer in the driveway peer that just declared bankruptcy. 

Its a bit of a stretch, right?

Well maybe, maybe not. Bail-out back-lash is starting to build. It seems like 1 in 3 callers on any given talk radio show is someone who is pissed off because they were responsible. Even traditional print media is publishing stories about responsible people expressing their frustration. The basic theme is something like “I wanted to buy the large expensive house but didn’t because I couldn’t afford it. And now I’m going to be stuck paying to keep my neighbor in the big house that they couldn’t afford.” Add to that the parallel plot unfolding in the the auto industry. Apparently the memo about how selling cars by making them bigger with more horsepower would reach a point of unsustainability somehow got to Detroit a little late and still caught them by surprise. I can’t help but share the Are you freaking kidding me? sentiment.

So if the automaker bail-out occurs…

Every citizen will be chipping in to put the current incarnation of the American dream on life support. Ironic that money you thought you were saving might end up going to subsidise the ultra commuter life style. A lifestyle that when not bound by some sort of geography sprawls so much that alternative transportation becomes almost impossible.

This post is not an argument to give up the dream of car-non-dependent communities. But the current numbers who are willing and able to take on their city as is just doesn’t amount to a critical mass in most places. The economic reality is that visionary projects; Springfield: The Next Great Cycling City? will take quite a bit of cash. And at this time, any extra cash is in danger of being sucked up by any industry that can make a legitimate threat of taking down the economy.

So as a Society we’ve kind of gotten ourselves into a we can’t afford the changes that we can’t afford not to make sort of spot. Cycling/Alternative Transportation Friendly Cities, Green Cities, Sustainable Communities or whatever you want to call them have come into their own as a viable concept. Yet the very factors that have ushered in their time now threaten to swallow the concept whole. Fortunately, there is always the Bike Bum option to fall back on if things get a little to bleak.